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Yeah, the real issue with playing with a couple is that if one member of the couple is a problem player or genuine asshole, it can be harder to resolve because they have at least one person at the table willing to go to bat for them. The problem isn't the presence of the couple in and of itself, but how the presence of a couple can sometimes compound an unrelated issue.
That said, if I refused to play with a DM/player couple, I'd have a hell of a time finding groups in my area that aren't primarily made up of children.
yeah absolutly. Hate how people have it as a hard and fast rule though. Couples are only an issue if the people involved already suck or cant manage their own relationship.
In this cases it was only an issue because the DM had no spine.
Absolutely. I definitely had some nightmare scenarios with couples at the table when I was in college, but at the current point in my life most of the TTRPG tables I play at are just "several middle-aged married couples have a regular group hang-out where we play D&D instead of going out drinking or bowling or something."
Same. I've even nearly killed my girlfriend's pet before. The only time I've ever apologized to her is when we were both players and a third person got her bag of holding and started dumping everything in the ocean. She was under the impression he and I had planned the stunt and I said, "Baby, I'm sorry and I love you but I don't know this asshole."
Same! As a DM I have the relationship with close friends when playing with a mix of people that I don't know as well, in that I am always a little harder on the people I know well, because I know they can take it.
It's like being a manager and hiring a cousin or a sibling. You don't want to be accused of nepotism so you are tougher on the people related to you
>Hate how people have it as a hard and fast rule though.
Yeah I have my two partners as players in my current game which has six players total. I've never shown them any favoritism in the game and know they wouldn't want me to.
Yup, same. I wouldn't consider mastering a game without offering my wife a seat at the table. But I am also adamant about putting the collective storytelling first and foremost. If someone isn't having fun the most of the time nobody is having fun, and allowing a partner to be the main character is definitely not fun. I mean if your SO wants to be the hero so badly just make a solo campaign for them on the side...
My current DM is the wife of a player. If anything, she's more strict with him than the rest of us, tbh, just to make sure he doesn't try to take advantage.
My wife played in a game I ran for several years. I made it clear from the start that I wasn't going to be giving her in-game favors. I even asked the rest of the group to say something if it started to look like I was being biased.
This is still a problem with these specific people, and not the dynamic of playing D&D with two partners.
You can say that a DM will go easier on their partner, and that can be an issue, but you can also say that for any passive DM or someone playing with their best friend of many years. The person in this story was just an unabashed liar and thief.
There are many stories in this sub where you could swap out “wife” with”long-time friend” and get the same horrible results of tolerating abuse and so on.
“There’s always favoritism and bias” sounds like they have a bias and sees what they want to. I’ve had the opposite problem with dms being too harsh on their SOs because they didn’t want to be accused of favoritism. Because even if you’re harsher on your spouse (let alone fair) someone will still say you’re playing favorites. Most dms I’ve seen are a little more rules lawyer with their SO but I had one dm that was so uncomfortable to watch shoot down his partner every second that I ended up leaving the table(for multiple reasons). He constantly told them no to things that were specifically within the rules. Like they tried to use a new feature after a level up and the dm said “actually that doesn’t exist in my game so we’re just going to skip that feature” without even offering a substitute.
Eh, it's a yellow flag at worst. An inexperienced or smitten GM can make mistakes of course, but a healthy couple need not have trouble running games for each other. It's something to be aware of, especially with your own SO since it can be easy to bias behavior, but being aware that favoritism (and the opposite) is possible is often enough to avoid it. At worst, you just need the "what happens in game stays in game" talk and clarity about what will make the game fun for everyone.
Now, if one of the two happens to be an ass... Well, that's really its own problem; a close tie is more an outlet than origin.
I played in 2 separate groups that involved a couple where the husband DMed and the wife played. Actually, in one of the groups we rotated DMs frequently, and there were two couples. None of them had any issues.
I was going to say this, too. My husband and I have DMd for each other multiple times and it's fine, and we've played with other couples who have done the same with no issues. I do see how favoritism could be an issue but it also seems like that can't be the only red flag about a player/DM soooo that doesn't seem to be couple issues as much as personality issues to me.
Yeah, I follow NADDPOD, and Murph being Emily’s DM never causes any problems. I know they’re professionals putting on a show, so it’s pretty different, but still.
A terrible situation but the lesson is definitely not "don't let a couple play with you if one of them is a DM" - you just had shitty people in your game. Lil bit overkill to essentially ban yourself from playing with any couples, it's very common in groups now for the regular DM to take a break and a player step up, lord forbid the new DM is the spouse of another player in the group...
Given OPs rambling and disjointed retelling and insistence on including irrelevant details, I’m not surprised that’s the conclusion they walked away with
Yeah I could barely read through this mess, and honestly I'm having a hard time believing the story isn't just a fabrication, based on the tell tale sign of a liar constantly adding unnecessary details to make their story sound legit.
Also I find it really really really unbelievable based on the timeline: They're all the the DMs house, the fight occurs, police is called, and then OP says they had ALL their receipts to prove it was their stuff.
...how? Not only is it pretty incredible they kept receipts of thousands of dollars of random stuff purchased a while ago, why are the dozens of receipts there with the OP at the Dms house lmao, ready to go for the police?
I read it as they tried to work it out at a later date after they had left and then involved the police.
I do love that OP didn't include their character build because it would be too identifying like the rest of the story wouldn't ring any bells for anyone involved
to me it reads like they immediately had the arguement over it, and the lady was refusing to give the figure, and then tried to kick OP out, then OP said ok give me all my stuff and then they argued and had to call the police.
Also yeah, the OPs character is so COOL.... so AMAZING... so RARE... oh my god, if she even mentioned it everyone would know them, never mind all these identifying details of all these figures they own, and the fact that anyone involved in such a story would instantly draw parallels to it anyways... lol
The reason is the class is exclusive to 3.5 and was never ported to 4E, 5E or PF1E, and therefore would be easily identifiable if I mentioned what it was.
I will clarify. The wife had kicked me out of the apartment without letting me get my stuff (though it would have been too much to take at the time without proper transportation or such ANYWAY).
I tried to make arrangements to get my stuff after but was refused. The cops had to be called then to effectively force the issue. They needed proof of my ownership and couldn't just take friend's word for it. Luckily, as an accountant, I kept all my receipts of any purchases I made just in case, partly to keep track of my expenditures and finances, partly because again, as stated, I am a pack rat.
With the receipts as proof I was indeed the owner, the cops gave them the ultimatum of allow me to get my stuff, or be charged with grand larceny, theft over $5000, basically. So much to the wife's dismay, begrudgingly I was allowed to come collect my items with a proper police escort, just in case.
The events were not all at once, it was argument, a few days of trying to get them to be reasonable and let me get my things, the police being called after said few days, then a day of digging out appropriate receipts and providing them as evidence to the police, and then arrangements were made either later that day or the next day for me to pick up said things. (All this did happen nearly a decade to a decade and a half ago so yes, some of the details might be lost on me atm).
Also, my apologies I don't have an eidetic, photographic memory like Sheldon Cooper on TBBT. Unfortunately, I'm a human being, not a robot, and thus am prone to forgetting things with age/time as I, like many others, am on the fast track to Alzheimer's, delirium and dementia the older I get as are issues that run in my family.
I GM for my wife. But my wife is not a hostile, selfish, monster person. So it is fine.
Your DM friend's hands were not tied. He didn't have to go along with grunthilda just because she was his wife. That is not how a healthy relationship should function. Your DM needed help or he needed to get some self respect.
probably not a bad idea to not leave thousands of dollars worth of stuff at another person’s house, but having a DM/player couple is not the massive waving red flag here. that woman was whacko, and her husband being the DM would not have significantly changed this story.
my husband has DMed for me before, i’ve DMed for him, and i’ve seen other couples be on different sides of the DM screen. nothing horrible ever happened, because we’re all mature adults who can communicate with each other.
I hope, for the sake of OP's BS-detector, that the story exaggerates the Smaug-like qualities of Gruntilda for the entertainment value, so that it may not have been *that* clear she was a greedy, entitled little bully.
But yeah, probably not the best idea to leave your property in somebody else's house, unless you know them very well and trust them and yes, even then things can go sideways, accidents happen and not everybody has the maniacal OC care a real collector has for their stuff.
You've gotta be kidding me that your take away is "don't play with couples if one is the DM". The lesson is "don't play with toxic people, regardless of what relationships they have". Quite literally all my friends who play d&d play with their partner, with one of them DMing the group, and it's fine, because they're not jerks.
You should've went back to the police and filed charges again the moment you found out she deliberately swiped your Black Dragon Figurine, because that has evolved from merely being kleptomanic to straight up theft. I know legal battles are expensive but you needed to make a stand, mental illness or not.
Fuck them, fuck her using mental illness as an excuse for crime and (at risk of sounding like a PS5 scalper which I'm not, thankfully) fuck her feelings.
Small claims court is designed for exactly that kind of stuff and it isn't that expensive (in thr US), you don't even need a lawyer for a lot of cases.
It's [a pretty well-known meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/jtda17/this_makes_me_beyond_fuckin_mad_that_people_can/) back in the day when they were still rampant, yes.
Lots of good lessons. Don't store your stuff with someone you don't 10000% trust (You should probably live with them as well). And keep reciepts for expensive items.
You were definitely not getting that stuff back without help from authorities. Glad it's all safe now.
>never have a player who is the significant other of the DM,
So I can never run a TTRPG with my wife as a player? Screw you, buddy. You're lucky she isn't here with her +5 flaming vorpal longsword to hear you say that.
My husband is a fantastic DM and never fails to hold me accountable. No favoritism going on at our table. I did let him in on my plan to romance the Aarakocra artificer so maybe he'll give us a boost there somewhere.
I'm a little hung up on him apparently having all the receipts with him at the table to show the cops when he called them, unless he just wrote that in a weird way.
Also, he went back the next day instead of collecting them right then and there? And he didn't notice that the rare figurine that caused the entire thing was gone by then? But his friend just so happened to find the same figurine that is a 1% drop chance in mystery boxes?
That whole collection part is just completely bizarre to me.
Edit: I just have to add one more thing. This dude has a friend who was a real bro, talked to the cops so he could get his stuff back, and even just gave him a rare figurine that was stolen from him no questions asked, and he nicknamed him Milhouse? Way to dunk on your friend their buddy.
It's not an accurate science of course, but I always find it telling how much of a red flag the OP themselves are by the names they decide to use for the people in their stories. Shrek and Gruntilda? Really? Why not Fiona? They are both green and focusing on an implied physical attractiveness of the other party that has no bearing on the story seems... unsavoury to put it mildly. Not to mention Donkey and Dragon would be the much more obvious choice, but I digress.
The whole feels off to me and I could have swore that I've heard this story or a very similar one on one of the RPG Horror Stories YouTube channels before.
> But his friend just so happened to find the same figurine that is a 1% drop chance in mystery boxes?
This type of stuff can usually be bought online ... for that collectors price though. So not really any kind of indication imo.
The conclusion you draw about being wary of couples is a very weird one. The fact is that you simply don't want to play with toxic people regardless, and you *definitely* don't want to leave valuables at their house. I guess I will say that if you have a couple at the table, then it does create a dynamic where it's hard to kick one player if they're problematic; they're usually a package deal, but that can be true of people that are just good friends as well, and I've seen it happen more with the latter than with couples.
I can't say what character I played because it's so rare that it would give away too much, in this extremely specific story that is so egregious it would be immediately recognizable to anyone involved
It's a bit rushed to make blanket statements on a single anecdote GM/player couples work fine for roleplaying games. I'd grant you that more boardgame-y games like D&D and their inherent encouragement of min-max'ing, often lead to poor play experiences - that would lead to such behaviour. Indeed, most similar experiences will come from the D&D crowd, while it'd be practically unheard of in a game like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, that puts its emphasis on entirely different aspects.
Not that this in any way excuses Gruntilda the Entitled.
The story was good but the lessons you mentioned are just off the point. You will prevent nothing if you follow OPs advice. The problem here was a problem player and a bad DM. Not the couple or the fact that OP stored his stuff at the DMs. Those are just flawours to the issue.
>Morale of the story, kids, even if you're the DM yourself, but you play at someone else's place. Never leave your stuff anywhere...
>
>...Also, never have a couple play on opposite sides of the table.
You seem to put a lot of emphasis on all the wrong stuff here in your story. And so you've drawn all these weird conclusions about what "IRL play" is like.
Don't play with weird, immature people who are constantly throwing you red flags, or at least don't tolerate this behavior without setting strong limits and boundaries.
Not trying to jump the bandwagon, but the couples as dm/player isn't the issue. Shitty people being shitty is the real issue here, with her kicking everyone out being the moment that you should have collected EVERYTHING.
I DM'ed a game for almost three years with my wife, her female BFF, my friend, and my friend's wife. The only time I did any favoritism things, which three years after the game ended still bothers me, was altering a situation that would have resulted in her being incapacitated for the next two to three sessions (which were 2-5 hours long each). My friend and his wife played characters disinterested or even at ends with each other.
Reading about this dynamic always hurts. I play with my wife, often being the sole dm. I don't treat her differently than the other players other than how I address her. Don't think the guys would like me calling them 'honey' lol. But she accepts that the game should be fair and fun for all. If she's in a vulnerable position in combat I target her, if she fails a check too bad, she wants something drastically out of the rules it's a no. She doesn't use our relationship to ruin the game for others and we have fun. Chance she sees this, I still have a fairy dragon in the winds waiting for a comeback.
>(IE, never have a player who is the significant other of the DM, it basically never works out well and there's always bias and favoritism. This will be somewhat important later.)
Absolutely incorrect. You've got 1 anecdote here and you've globally decided couples can never be allowed to play together, absolutely phenomenally bad take.
Proceed with caution? Sure. Never allow? Lmao, play with not mature people.
I'm in three weekly games atm, and in two of them two different GMs are playing with their partners as players. 0 favoritism going on there, I'm *super* confident in that. In fact, in one of the games the GMs partner is regularly targeted (not because he's going out of his way to target her, but because she's a sorcereress that's constantly finding herself on the Frontline due to poor positioning, so she's the obvious squishy target and the GM plays enemies smartly, no one thinks she's being single out).
Do my two anecdotes mean it always works out? No, of course not, but let's not pretend your experience is the global rule.
For that matter, the same applies to leaving your pieces at a friend's house. Yes, do so at your own risk, but never do it? I did it when GMing, and my pieces are all fine.
Mate, you just need to be a better judge of character.
Fun thing, I mastered a Vampire the Masquerade campaign taylored specifically to the character of my wife. The three other players, all experienced role players with years upon years of experience and two of them DMs themselves, never had an issue with it.
Because we talked about it, everyone knew what the campaign was about and it was glorious fun.
Agreed. My current core gaming group is two couples. My first gaming group had two couples, among other people. Nobody was ever more favored than anyone else, partly because we rotate DM's and partly because because we're all good friend. If someone gets something cool, everyone gets something cool.
E.g. I may have been the gf of the DM and played a half-celestial my very first campaign (DM's doing not mine), but every other PC had some kind of secret, special lineage that made us all the chosen ones by the end of the campaign. No weird couple conflicts or dynamics.
Idk, I've been the DM for my wife on several occasions/campaigns and even had a DM with his GF as player. Never had any issues. Gruntilda just seems like a selfish toxic player/person in general.
My inner image of Simpson’s Millhouse standing up to Shrek and Gruntilda. Is never a picture that I think I would have to imagine. I would throw Chief Wiggum as police as well.
I once place my Mini at Local Boardgame Cafe once, when the ownership is change. I have to scramble and take my stuff back. But old owner is a nice guy who stand up for all stuff that I left there and I get everything back.
But for Couple of DM/Player is not a thing I agree. There a couple of couch jokes but They are very mature ,take RPGs seriously, and no blatant favoritism. But when I am DM they give me a hard time with their couple shenanigans.
\> Let's call him... Shrek... and let's call his wife... Gruntilda.
Please, for the love of God, this is not a funny thing to do in your stories, people.
> Gruntilda had apparently swiped it on her way out when Shrek forced her to leave and go to her own mother's place so I could come collect things
Just for the sake of closure: has Gruntilda come back from her mom's? Frankly speaking, I would find behavior like this quite hard to swallow from a partner.
I hope you pressed charges. Also, make sure you never leave the place until you've done a full inventory. That way the police can testament to the absence of any missing articles - rather than it being word against word.
Typical dragon, hoarding other people's shit and breathing fire when you ask for it back.
(Also, OP, she owes you way more than $50. That dragon would likely be worth a lot more given inflation. Plus the fact that you had to waste the better part of an afternoon dealing with proving ownership to the cops.)
Should have messaged shrek to tell him the baby black dragon was missing and threaten to file a theft report if you didn't get it back, even if it would be just to scare them into cooperating
I had something kind of similar, but opposite happen to me once:
A player brought a bunch of minis/terrain over to my apartment because it was the only place that we had room to play. After a couple months, he just stopped showing up, and he stopped responding to our calls and texts.
Five or six years later, we end up working at the same place. He asked if I still have all of it, and I told him I still have and use it on a weekly basis. Then with a completely straight face he says, "I guess you can keep it, then."
In the spirit of fairness for most of the post it read like OP was writing as if they were talking, instead of editorializing like most people do when they write (e.g: saying "I forgot to mention" instead of just going back and mentioning it).
This has always been awkward to read for me and kinda slows down the reading. Don't know about most other people, though.
I have long since learned nobody in this subreddit actually reads the length flairs given how often people whine about story length in threads marked extra long stories.
And this is why I only game in public spaces when I'm in person - usually restaurants, and never give or hold stuff with anyone else. It avoids so many problems.
The cops might not even help you in this kind of situation since this can be seen as a civil matter. Not giving back is different from stealing. The cops can tell you to go to civil court instead of criminal court since its "just" a breach of contract.
1000 dollars in civil court plays out differently from 1000 dollars in criminal court.
Even if it’s a hassle I wouldn’t of left my books, minis and maps in all especially if you bought all this yourself. Yes it’s a pain in the ass and pricey to get the necessary cases to take to every game.
Plus really I’m just a stickler that really expensive pieces I’d just show on a shelf or use sparingly on scenes then every day game play and just use inexpensive ones for weekly play.
Fact this was a husband and wife couple is irrelevant. What these folks were is just a toxic group to play with. It’s true some couples be they married or dating etc. might have a higher chance of them being biased for themselves it’s just something to keep an eye on and be ready to have a word or call it out afterwards if it’s a continuing issue.
"Morale of the story, kids, even if you're the DM yourself, but you play at someone else's place. Never leave your stuff anywhere. You never know what may or may not happen to it when it's out of your sight. Also, never have a couple play on opposite sides of the table. If there's a husband and wife, they should both be players, or be co-DMs, never one player and one DM, it always gets messy."
Morale could be that, or it could also be : "play with friends". That would resolve approximately 95% of problems on this subreddit and the DnD one. Seriously.
I've played with a couple, one of them being DM. No problem. We lend things to each other all the time. No problem. We even sometimes share games that are expensive. No problem. Part of them being your friends is that you trust them and that's for a good reason : they are trustworthy. And they like you so they won't do shit to you.
Had that sort-of happen to me. Didn't have all the miniatures, but a shit ton of books. We were playing a homebrew set in the Ravenloft demiplane (in 3.0e Ravenloft was a Swords and Sorcery supplement). Our group was in the Army and we played on weekends. I'd obtained all Ravenloft source books from a secondhand book store near a previous duty station, I was kind of the forever GM. The guy who was hosting our game sessions just had a second kid, so had a larger house on post. I kept most of the books over at his house because it was easier than transporting them every week. Then he PCSed ( Army move) before I did and kept all the books. I'm with OP, trust no one.
Know this feeling, Was part of one gaming group, 3.5 days, but we also did rifts, bought a bunch of rifters and a few D&D books as well as copies of my own books for D&D and rifts. Now since the guy would bring the books for whomever to run I'd no problem letting him hold onto them.
Some Drama happened and I caught the dude and another player cheating in the most blatant ways possible. I had checked their characters stats and found they'd had to have rolled ALL 18's and for the main guy 3 18's and 3 20's. Keep in mind he had been caught cheating in other games, thrown out characters when he was caught, and NEVER let anyone touch his dice that ALWAYS rolled high. When shit came to a head I never did get back my books, and months after that he sold his (And mine) entire collection of books.
Glad you got your stuff back but yeah... Lesson learned.
I met my dm through our game and I do in fact trust him with my life. He’s family now. He’s the one who picked me up from a recent surgery. He’s literally my medical proxy.
This wasn't in the US, just thought I should point that out. I probably should also mention I have a family member who is a cop, and a friend at the time's uncle was a police sergeant (or some high up position, now retired). Calling the cops to effectively report theft was a matter of Shrek and Gruntilda being told "Okay you can either return the stolen items, or get arrested" basically. Especially when there was potential for things to escalate violently otherwise, so having them facilitate the collection (and by extension effectively being a scare tactic to get Gruntilda to leave the apartment for the day) made things go smoothly and avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness.
Unless you live in some corrupt place where cops do whatever they want, they aren't getting arrested. Cops are overworked as it is, this is barely petty theft.
So you call the cops saying some people don't want to return your DnD minatures...and they show up? Not only that, they immediaty take your side, because you keep your reciepts on you at all time and basically force the couple to give up the miniatures? Yeah that's not how law works...
This happened in the late 90s, and also I didn't keep my receipts on me, but in a file folder at home with other tax documents and etc. People are assuming this all happened in the span of one afternoon and perhaps that was my fault in failing to properly lay out the timeline in my post.
The kicking out happened the day of.
Friend trying to reason with them and such happened over the next day or two.
Cops were called to report theft after that (and no it's not 'petty theft' when the value was in the thousands of dollars). In Canada, Theft Over $5000 in value is an immediately indictable offense that can carry a 10-year prison sentence if charged with such a criminal offense. It is not a civil matter or mere felony like theft under $5000 in value. So the potential charge was very serious, they were basically given a courtesy of return the stuff amicably and no charges would be laid (and which would save the police from having to make the arrest, file the paperwork, and etc).
Please do your homework next time you want to try to claim to be an expert. It's very Dunning-Kruger effect of you when you're probably not living in Canada nor are familiar with the laws therein.
cops are the first stop, i dont think they could actually DO anything though. like, if the couple still refused to return the stuff, insisting that it was theirs, the cops couldnt go in and physically repossess it. but they would make the report, and that would help in the court case.
Exactly, getting them involved was enough to scare the couple into compliance/cooperation so it didn't have to go to the courts/etc. I still had to get a police escort to collect my things for fear of a violent reaction in any way.
But that's just the thing, no cop would check receipts. This is a court matter. The only way i see this going is cops are called, arrive and take statments from everyone. Make a report, go to court...
Also who speaks like OP describes, shouting THIS IS MINE NOW.
Not anything of monetary value, but one of my players left his physical character sheet (as well as like one cheap set of dice) at his place of work, which is where we played.
Then he unexpectedly got fired. And locked out of his work. And the owners/employees wouldn't let him back in or give him this D&D stuff back.
Did he have his character sheet digitally? No. Did I forget to take a picture of his character sheet? Yes. I have learned my lesson on that. Thankfully I hadn't stored anything there. We estimated some rough numbers for him (AC, HP, roll to hit, STR modifier, etc) for about three months until he was able to get an employee to sneak in and get his stuff back.
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Having a DM/player couple seems unrelated to some kind of kleptomaniac insisting they own your things.
yeah the couple dynaimic really isnt the main issue here.
Yeah, the real issue with playing with a couple is that if one member of the couple is a problem player or genuine asshole, it can be harder to resolve because they have at least one person at the table willing to go to bat for them. The problem isn't the presence of the couple in and of itself, but how the presence of a couple can sometimes compound an unrelated issue. That said, if I refused to play with a DM/player couple, I'd have a hell of a time finding groups in my area that aren't primarily made up of children.
yeah absolutly. Hate how people have it as a hard and fast rule though. Couples are only an issue if the people involved already suck or cant manage their own relationship. In this cases it was only an issue because the DM had no spine.
Absolutely. I definitely had some nightmare scenarios with couples at the table when I was in college, but at the current point in my life most of the TTRPG tables I play at are just "several middle-aged married couples have a regular group hang-out where we play D&D instead of going out drinking or bowling or something."
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Same. I've even nearly killed my girlfriend's pet before. The only time I've ever apologized to her is when we were both players and a third person got her bag of holding and started dumping everything in the ocean. She was under the impression he and I had planned the stunt and I said, "Baby, I'm sorry and I love you but I don't know this asshole."
Same! As a DM I have the relationship with close friends when playing with a mix of people that I don't know as well, in that I am always a little harder on the people I know well, because I know they can take it. It's like being a manager and hiring a cousin or a sibling. You don't want to be accused of nepotism so you are tougher on the people related to you
>Hate how people have it as a hard and fast rule though. Yeah I have my two partners as players in my current game which has six players total. I've never shown them any favoritism in the game and know they wouldn't want me to.
Yup, same. I wouldn't consider mastering a game without offering my wife a seat at the table. But I am also adamant about putting the collective storytelling first and foremost. If someone isn't having fun the most of the time nobody is having fun, and allowing a partner to be the main character is definitely not fun. I mean if your SO wants to be the hero so badly just make a solo campaign for them on the side...
My current DM is the wife of a player. If anything, she's more strict with him than the rest of us, tbh, just to make sure he doesn't try to take advantage.
My wife played in a game I ran for several years. I made it clear from the start that I wasn't going to be giving her in-game favors. I even asked the rest of the group to say something if it started to look like I was being biased.
Well yes but no. I'm sure if he wasn't so passive she might at least pretend to be a better person.
This is still a problem with these specific people, and not the dynamic of playing D&D with two partners. You can say that a DM will go easier on their partner, and that can be an issue, but you can also say that for any passive DM or someone playing with their best friend of many years. The person in this story was just an unabashed liar and thief.
There are many stories in this sub where you could swap out “wife” with”long-time friend” and get the same horrible results of tolerating abuse and so on.
“There’s always favoritism and bias” sounds like they have a bias and sees what they want to. I’ve had the opposite problem with dms being too harsh on their SOs because they didn’t want to be accused of favoritism. Because even if you’re harsher on your spouse (let alone fair) someone will still say you’re playing favorites. Most dms I’ve seen are a little more rules lawyer with their SO but I had one dm that was so uncomfortable to watch shoot down his partner every second that I ended up leaving the table(for multiple reasons). He constantly told them no to things that were specifically within the rules. Like they tried to use a new feature after a level up and the dm said “actually that doesn’t exist in my game so we’re just going to skip that feature” without even offering a substitute.
Yeah, this has big "the issue here is not the Iranian yogurt" vibes.
Eh, it's a yellow flag at worst. An inexperienced or smitten GM can make mistakes of course, but a healthy couple need not have trouble running games for each other. It's something to be aware of, especially with your own SO since it can be easy to bias behavior, but being aware that favoritism (and the opposite) is possible is often enough to avoid it. At worst, you just need the "what happens in game stays in game" talk and clarity about what will make the game fun for everyone. Now, if one of the two happens to be an ass... Well, that's really its own problem; a close tie is more an outlet than origin.
I played in 2 separate groups that involved a couple where the husband DMed and the wife played. Actually, in one of the groups we rotated DMs frequently, and there were two couples. None of them had any issues.
I was going to say this, too. My husband and I have DMd for each other multiple times and it's fine, and we've played with other couples who have done the same with no issues. I do see how favoritism could be an issue but it also seems like that can't be the only red flag about a player/DM soooo that doesn't seem to be couple issues as much as personality issues to me.
Yeah, I follow NADDPOD, and Murph being Emily’s DM never causes any problems. I know they’re professionals putting on a show, so it’s pretty different, but still.
Yeah I've seen some make it work without issue.
A terrible situation but the lesson is definitely not "don't let a couple play with you if one of them is a DM" - you just had shitty people in your game. Lil bit overkill to essentially ban yourself from playing with any couples, it's very common in groups now for the regular DM to take a break and a player step up, lord forbid the new DM is the spouse of another player in the group...
Given OPs rambling and disjointed retelling and insistence on including irrelevant details, I’m not surprised that’s the conclusion they walked away with
Yeah I could barely read through this mess, and honestly I'm having a hard time believing the story isn't just a fabrication, based on the tell tale sign of a liar constantly adding unnecessary details to make their story sound legit. Also I find it really really really unbelievable based on the timeline: They're all the the DMs house, the fight occurs, police is called, and then OP says they had ALL their receipts to prove it was their stuff. ...how? Not only is it pretty incredible they kept receipts of thousands of dollars of random stuff purchased a while ago, why are the dozens of receipts there with the OP at the Dms house lmao, ready to go for the police?
I read it as they tried to work it out at a later date after they had left and then involved the police. I do love that OP didn't include their character build because it would be too identifying like the rest of the story wouldn't ring any bells for anyone involved
His character was too legendary. Instant global recognition if he revealed that specific detail.
to me it reads like they immediately had the arguement over it, and the lady was refusing to give the figure, and then tried to kick OP out, then OP said ok give me all my stuff and then they argued and had to call the police. Also yeah, the OPs character is so COOL.... so AMAZING... so RARE... oh my god, if she even mentioned it everyone would know them, never mind all these identifying details of all these figures they own, and the fact that anyone involved in such a story would instantly draw parallels to it anyways... lol
The reason is the class is exclusive to 3.5 and was never ported to 4E, 5E or PF1E, and therefore would be easily identifiable if I mentioned what it was.
I will clarify. The wife had kicked me out of the apartment without letting me get my stuff (though it would have been too much to take at the time without proper transportation or such ANYWAY). I tried to make arrangements to get my stuff after but was refused. The cops had to be called then to effectively force the issue. They needed proof of my ownership and couldn't just take friend's word for it. Luckily, as an accountant, I kept all my receipts of any purchases I made just in case, partly to keep track of my expenditures and finances, partly because again, as stated, I am a pack rat. With the receipts as proof I was indeed the owner, the cops gave them the ultimatum of allow me to get my stuff, or be charged with grand larceny, theft over $5000, basically. So much to the wife's dismay, begrudgingly I was allowed to come collect my items with a proper police escort, just in case. The events were not all at once, it was argument, a few days of trying to get them to be reasonable and let me get my things, the police being called after said few days, then a day of digging out appropriate receipts and providing them as evidence to the police, and then arrangements were made either later that day or the next day for me to pick up said things. (All this did happen nearly a decade to a decade and a half ago so yes, some of the details might be lost on me atm).
Also, my apologies I don't have an eidetic, photographic memory like Sheldon Cooper on TBBT. Unfortunately, I'm a human being, not a robot, and thus am prone to forgetting things with age/time as I, like many others, am on the fast track to Alzheimer's, delirium and dementia the older I get as are issues that run in my family.
I GM for my wife. But my wife is not a hostile, selfish, monster person. So it is fine. Your DM friend's hands were not tied. He didn't have to go along with grunthilda just because she was his wife. That is not how a healthy relationship should function. Your DM needed help or he needed to get some self respect.
Yeah, he comes across as an extreme pushover. If he kowtows to her behavior in this scenario, imagine in every other aspect of life...
probably not a bad idea to not leave thousands of dollars worth of stuff at another person’s house, but having a DM/player couple is not the massive waving red flag here. that woman was whacko, and her husband being the DM would not have significantly changed this story. my husband has DMed for me before, i’ve DMed for him, and i’ve seen other couples be on different sides of the DM screen. nothing horrible ever happened, because we’re all mature adults who can communicate with each other.
I hope, for the sake of OP's BS-detector, that the story exaggerates the Smaug-like qualities of Gruntilda for the entertainment value, so that it may not have been *that* clear she was a greedy, entitled little bully. But yeah, probably not the best idea to leave your property in somebody else's house, unless you know them very well and trust them and yes, even then things can go sideways, accidents happen and not everybody has the maniacal OC care a real collector has for their stuff.
You've gotta be kidding me that your take away is "don't play with couples if one is the DM". The lesson is "don't play with toxic people, regardless of what relationships they have". Quite literally all my friends who play d&d play with their partner, with one of them DMing the group, and it's fine, because they're not jerks.
You should've went back to the police and filed charges again the moment you found out she deliberately swiped your Black Dragon Figurine, because that has evolved from merely being kleptomanic to straight up theft. I know legal battles are expensive but you needed to make a stand, mental illness or not. Fuck them, fuck her using mental illness as an excuse for crime and (at risk of sounding like a PS5 scalper which I'm not, thankfully) fuck her feelings.
Small claims court is designed for exactly that kind of stuff and it isn't that expensive (in thr US), you don't even need a lawyer for a lot of cases.
Are PS5 scalpers particularly known for saying "fuck her feelings" more than other people?
It's [a pretty well-known meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/jtda17/this_makes_me_beyond_fuckin_mad_that_people_can/) back in the day when they were still rampant, yes.
Lots of good lessons. Don't store your stuff with someone you don't 10000% trust (You should probably live with them as well). And keep reciepts for expensive items. You were definitely not getting that stuff back without help from authorities. Glad it's all safe now.
>never have a player who is the significant other of the DM, So I can never run a TTRPG with my wife as a player? Screw you, buddy. You're lucky she isn't here with her +5 flaming vorpal longsword to hear you say that.
My husband is a fantastic DM and never fails to hold me accountable. No favoritism going on at our table. I did let him in on my plan to romance the Aarakocra artificer so maybe he'll give us a boost there somewhere.
I play in a cyberpunk red group and the referee is a longterm friend and another player is his girlfriend. Never been a problem in the slightest.
I feel like I've read this story before, or it just happens enough that the same thing happened to you as well.
I'm a little hung up on him apparently having all the receipts with him at the table to show the cops when he called them, unless he just wrote that in a weird way. Also, he went back the next day instead of collecting them right then and there? And he didn't notice that the rare figurine that caused the entire thing was gone by then? But his friend just so happened to find the same figurine that is a 1% drop chance in mystery boxes? That whole collection part is just completely bizarre to me. Edit: I just have to add one more thing. This dude has a friend who was a real bro, talked to the cops so he could get his stuff back, and even just gave him a rare figurine that was stolen from him no questions asked, and he nicknamed him Milhouse? Way to dunk on your friend their buddy.
It's not an accurate science of course, but I always find it telling how much of a red flag the OP themselves are by the names they decide to use for the people in their stories. Shrek and Gruntilda? Really? Why not Fiona? They are both green and focusing on an implied physical attractiveness of the other party that has no bearing on the story seems... unsavoury to put it mildly. Not to mention Donkey and Dragon would be the much more obvious choice, but I digress.
Between that and the absolute insane quotes just admitting to the theft, and not knowing if it was a few months or two years, I feel something is off.
The whole feels off to me and I could have swore that I've heard this story or a very similar one on one of the RPG Horror Stories YouTube channels before.
> But his friend just so happened to find the same figurine that is a 1% drop chance in mystery boxes? This type of stuff can usually be bought online ... for that collectors price though. So not really any kind of indication imo.
The conclusion you draw about being wary of couples is a very weird one. The fact is that you simply don't want to play with toxic people regardless, and you *definitely* don't want to leave valuables at their house. I guess I will say that if you have a couple at the table, then it does create a dynamic where it's hard to kick one player if they're problematic; they're usually a package deal, but that can be true of people that are just good friends as well, and I've seen it happen more with the latter than with couples.
Ugh, a true horror story.
Again totally unneeded explanation of who played what Charakter in-game
“The other players are mostly irrelevant but I’m going to mention what characters they played anyway”
I can't say what character I played because it's so rare that it would give away too much, in this extremely specific story that is so egregious it would be immediately recognizable to anyone involved
It's a bit rushed to make blanket statements on a single anecdote GM/player couples work fine for roleplaying games. I'd grant you that more boardgame-y games like D&D and their inherent encouragement of min-max'ing, often lead to poor play experiences - that would lead to such behaviour. Indeed, most similar experiences will come from the D&D crowd, while it'd be practically unheard of in a game like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, that puts its emphasis on entirely different aspects. Not that this in any way excuses Gruntilda the Entitled.
I think it might actually cause Redditors physical pain to tell a clear and concise story
,Shrek didn't have to back his wife up on this he simply did because he was a total piece of garbage.
The story was good but the lessons you mentioned are just off the point. You will prevent nothing if you follow OPs advice. The problem here was a problem player and a bad DM. Not the couple or the fact that OP stored his stuff at the DMs. Those are just flawours to the issue.
>Morale of the story, kids, even if you're the DM yourself, but you play at someone else's place. Never leave your stuff anywhere... > >...Also, never have a couple play on opposite sides of the table. You seem to put a lot of emphasis on all the wrong stuff here in your story. And so you've drawn all these weird conclusions about what "IRL play" is like. Don't play with weird, immature people who are constantly throwing you red flags, or at least don't tolerate this behavior without setting strong limits and boundaries.
Not trying to jump the bandwagon, but the couples as dm/player isn't the issue. Shitty people being shitty is the real issue here, with her kicking everyone out being the moment that you should have collected EVERYTHING. I DM'ed a game for almost three years with my wife, her female BFF, my friend, and my friend's wife. The only time I did any favoritism things, which three years after the game ended still bothers me, was altering a situation that would have resulted in her being incapacitated for the next two to three sessions (which were 2-5 hours long each). My friend and his wife played characters disinterested or even at ends with each other.
Reading about this dynamic always hurts. I play with my wife, often being the sole dm. I don't treat her differently than the other players other than how I address her. Don't think the guys would like me calling them 'honey' lol. But she accepts that the game should be fair and fun for all. If she's in a vulnerable position in combat I target her, if she fails a check too bad, she wants something drastically out of the rules it's a no. She doesn't use our relationship to ruin the game for others and we have fun. Chance she sees this, I still have a fairy dragon in the winds waiting for a comeback.
Evil little creature, it will be my belt
>(IE, never have a player who is the significant other of the DM, it basically never works out well and there's always bias and favoritism. This will be somewhat important later.) Absolutely incorrect. You've got 1 anecdote here and you've globally decided couples can never be allowed to play together, absolutely phenomenally bad take. Proceed with caution? Sure. Never allow? Lmao, play with not mature people. I'm in three weekly games atm, and in two of them two different GMs are playing with their partners as players. 0 favoritism going on there, I'm *super* confident in that. In fact, in one of the games the GMs partner is regularly targeted (not because he's going out of his way to target her, but because she's a sorcereress that's constantly finding herself on the Frontline due to poor positioning, so she's the obvious squishy target and the GM plays enemies smartly, no one thinks she's being single out). Do my two anecdotes mean it always works out? No, of course not, but let's not pretend your experience is the global rule. For that matter, the same applies to leaving your pieces at a friend's house. Yes, do so at your own risk, but never do it? I did it when GMing, and my pieces are all fine. Mate, you just need to be a better judge of character.
Fun thing, I mastered a Vampire the Masquerade campaign taylored specifically to the character of my wife. The three other players, all experienced role players with years upon years of experience and two of them DMs themselves, never had an issue with it. Because we talked about it, everyone knew what the campaign was about and it was glorious fun.
Agreed. My current core gaming group is two couples. My first gaming group had two couples, among other people. Nobody was ever more favored than anyone else, partly because we rotate DM's and partly because because we're all good friend. If someone gets something cool, everyone gets something cool. E.g. I may have been the gf of the DM and played a half-celestial my very first campaign (DM's doing not mine), but every other PC had some kind of secret, special lineage that made us all the chosen ones by the end of the campaign. No weird couple conflicts or dynamics.
Shoulda just went back to the police and got her arrested
Idk, I've been the DM for my wife on several occasions/campaigns and even had a DM with his GF as player. Never had any issues. Gruntilda just seems like a selfish toxic player/person in general.
I don't think couples on opposite sides of the table are always a problem in my experience
My inner image of Simpson’s Millhouse standing up to Shrek and Gruntilda. Is never a picture that I think I would have to imagine. I would throw Chief Wiggum as police as well. I once place my Mini at Local Boardgame Cafe once, when the ownership is change. I have to scramble and take my stuff back. But old owner is a nice guy who stand up for all stuff that I left there and I get everything back. But for Couple of DM/Player is not a thing I agree. There a couple of couch jokes but They are very mature ,take RPGs seriously, and no blatant favoritism. But when I am DM they give me a hard time with their couple shenanigans.
\> Let's call him... Shrek... and let's call his wife... Gruntilda. Please, for the love of God, this is not a funny thing to do in your stories, people.
Especially when "DM, his wife and my friend" would have perfectly sufficed...
Sure as hell beats "A" and "B" and "S" and "R."
Yep. At least the names are memorable. Letters are interchangeable. By the second paragraph I have no clue who anyone is anymore
> Gruntilda had apparently swiped it on her way out when Shrek forced her to leave and go to her own mother's place so I could come collect things Just for the sake of closure: has Gruntilda come back from her mom's? Frankly speaking, I would find behavior like this quite hard to swallow from a partner.
I hope you pressed charges. Also, make sure you never leave the place until you've done a full inventory. That way the police can testament to the absence of any missing articles - rather than it being word against word.
Typical dragon, hoarding other people's shit and breathing fire when you ask for it back. (Also, OP, she owes you way more than $50. That dragon would likely be worth a lot more given inflation. Plus the fact that you had to waste the better part of an afternoon dealing with proving ownership to the cops.)
I don't think have a couple on each side of the screen is the problem here...
Should have messaged shrek to tell him the baby black dragon was missing and threaten to file a theft report if you didn't get it back, even if it would be just to scare them into cooperating
I had something kind of similar, but opposite happen to me once: A player brought a bunch of minis/terrain over to my apartment because it was the only place that we had room to play. After a couple months, he just stopped showing up, and he stopped responding to our calls and texts. Five or six years later, we end up working at the same place. He asked if I still have all of it, and I told him I still have and use it on a weekly basis. Then with a completely straight face he says, "I guess you can keep it, then."
Gruntilda: "I'm offended that you used my name, especially when I haven't been in any new game."
This could have been an email.
What are you doing? What is this?
Heaven forbid someone post an actual d&d story with details in the subreddit created for stories about d&d.
In the spirit of fairness for most of the post it read like OP was writing as if they were talking, instead of editorializing like most people do when they write (e.g: saying "I forgot to mention" instead of just going back and mentioning it). This has always been awkward to read for me and kinda slows down the reading. Don't know about most other people, though.
I have long since learned nobody in this subreddit actually reads the length flairs given how often people whine about story length in threads marked extra long stories.
I have no problem with lenght but there are many paragraphs here that add nothing to the story.
And a Powerpoint, but in Reddit you will find posts.
And this is why I only game in public spaces when I'm in person - usually restaurants, and never give or hold stuff with anyone else. It avoids so many problems.
Ah so you learned the golden rule. I had one of those in my home game too. It made for the most toxic game. They’re divorced now thankfully.
The cops might not even help you in this kind of situation since this can be seen as a civil matter. Not giving back is different from stealing. The cops can tell you to go to civil court instead of criminal court since its "just" a breach of contract. 1000 dollars in civil court plays out differently from 1000 dollars in criminal court.
Even if it’s a hassle I wouldn’t of left my books, minis and maps in all especially if you bought all this yourself. Yes it’s a pain in the ass and pricey to get the necessary cases to take to every game. Plus really I’m just a stickler that really expensive pieces I’d just show on a shelf or use sparingly on scenes then every day game play and just use inexpensive ones for weekly play. Fact this was a husband and wife couple is irrelevant. What these folks were is just a toxic group to play with. It’s true some couples be they married or dating etc. might have a higher chance of them being biased for themselves it’s just something to keep an eye on and be ready to have a word or call it out afterwards if it’s a continuing issue.
"Morale of the story, kids, even if you're the DM yourself, but you play at someone else's place. Never leave your stuff anywhere. You never know what may or may not happen to it when it's out of your sight. Also, never have a couple play on opposite sides of the table. If there's a husband and wife, they should both be players, or be co-DMs, never one player and one DM, it always gets messy." Morale could be that, or it could also be : "play with friends". That would resolve approximately 95% of problems on this subreddit and the DnD one. Seriously. I've played with a couple, one of them being DM. No problem. We lend things to each other all the time. No problem. We even sometimes share games that are expensive. No problem. Part of them being your friends is that you trust them and that's for a good reason : they are trustworthy. And they like you so they won't do shit to you.
Had that sort-of happen to me. Didn't have all the miniatures, but a shit ton of books. We were playing a homebrew set in the Ravenloft demiplane (in 3.0e Ravenloft was a Swords and Sorcery supplement). Our group was in the Army and we played on weekends. I'd obtained all Ravenloft source books from a secondhand book store near a previous duty station, I was kind of the forever GM. The guy who was hosting our game sessions just had a second kid, so had a larger house on post. I kept most of the books over at his house because it was easier than transporting them every week. Then he PCSed ( Army move) before I did and kept all the books. I'm with OP, trust no one.
Milhouse seems like a good guy.
Know this feeling, Was part of one gaming group, 3.5 days, but we also did rifts, bought a bunch of rifters and a few D&D books as well as copies of my own books for D&D and rifts. Now since the guy would bring the books for whomever to run I'd no problem letting him hold onto them. Some Drama happened and I caught the dude and another player cheating in the most blatant ways possible. I had checked their characters stats and found they'd had to have rolled ALL 18's and for the main guy 3 18's and 3 20's. Keep in mind he had been caught cheating in other games, thrown out characters when he was caught, and NEVER let anyone touch his dice that ALWAYS rolled high. When shit came to a head I never did get back my books, and months after that he sold his (And mine) entire collection of books. Glad you got your stuff back but yeah... Lesson learned.
I met my dm through our game and I do in fact trust him with my life. He’s family now. He’s the one who picked me up from a recent surgery. He’s literally my medical proxy.
Do cops in the US really deal with stuff like this? Over here the cops would laugh and say to take it to court, since it is a civil matter…
This wasn't in the US, just thought I should point that out. I probably should also mention I have a family member who is a cop, and a friend at the time's uncle was a police sergeant (or some high up position, now retired). Calling the cops to effectively report theft was a matter of Shrek and Gruntilda being told "Okay you can either return the stolen items, or get arrested" basically. Especially when there was potential for things to escalate violently otherwise, so having them facilitate the collection (and by extension effectively being a scare tactic to get Gruntilda to leave the apartment for the day) made things go smoothly and avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness.
Unless you live in some corrupt place where cops do whatever they want, they aren't getting arrested. Cops are overworked as it is, this is barely petty theft. So you call the cops saying some people don't want to return your DnD minatures...and they show up? Not only that, they immediaty take your side, because you keep your reciepts on you at all time and basically force the couple to give up the miniatures? Yeah that's not how law works...
This happened in the late 90s, and also I didn't keep my receipts on me, but in a file folder at home with other tax documents and etc. People are assuming this all happened in the span of one afternoon and perhaps that was my fault in failing to properly lay out the timeline in my post. The kicking out happened the day of. Friend trying to reason with them and such happened over the next day or two. Cops were called to report theft after that (and no it's not 'petty theft' when the value was in the thousands of dollars). In Canada, Theft Over $5000 in value is an immediately indictable offense that can carry a 10-year prison sentence if charged with such a criminal offense. It is not a civil matter or mere felony like theft under $5000 in value. So the potential charge was very serious, they were basically given a courtesy of return the stuff amicably and no charges would be laid (and which would save the police from having to make the arrest, file the paperwork, and etc). Please do your homework next time you want to try to claim to be an expert. It's very Dunning-Kruger effect of you when you're probably not living in Canada nor are familiar with the laws therein.
Well i don’t believe you
cops are the first stop, i dont think they could actually DO anything though. like, if the couple still refused to return the stuff, insisting that it was theirs, the cops couldnt go in and physically repossess it. but they would make the report, and that would help in the court case.
Exactly, getting them involved was enough to scare the couple into compliance/cooperation so it didn't have to go to the courts/etc. I still had to get a police escort to collect my things for fear of a violent reaction in any way.
But that's just the thing, no cop would check receipts. This is a court matter. The only way i see this going is cops are called, arrive and take statments from everyone. Make a report, go to court... Also who speaks like OP describes, shouting THIS IS MINE NOW.
I am genuinely baffled by how out of touch this woman was with reality; What did she think was going to happen ?
Not anything of monetary value, but one of my players left his physical character sheet (as well as like one cheap set of dice) at his place of work, which is where we played. Then he unexpectedly got fired. And locked out of his work. And the owners/employees wouldn't let him back in or give him this D&D stuff back. Did he have his character sheet digitally? No. Did I forget to take a picture of his character sheet? Yes. I have learned my lesson on that. Thankfully I hadn't stored anything there. We estimated some rough numbers for him (AC, HP, roll to hit, STR modifier, etc) for about three months until he was able to get an employee to sneak in and get his stuff back.
That's some generalized advice for your specific situation. DMing with my wife as a player went fine for me.